CHINA UNITES UNDER A
NEW EMPIRE
ZHOU DYNASTY 1027-256 BCE
•
Feudal period
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Declined because regional rulers began to think
of themselves as independent
CONFUCIUS URGES HARMONY
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Confucius (551 – BCE) was China’s most influential scholar
•
Believed in 5 relationships that would restore China’s order
and harmony
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Ruler and subject
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Father and son
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Husband and wife
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Older brother and younger brother
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Friend and friend
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Large emphasis on family
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Children should practice filial piety- respect for one’s parents
and elders
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His students collected his teachings in a book Analects
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A disciple named Mencius spread his teachings
CONFUCIAN IDEAS ABOUT GOVERNMENT
• Education was a key part of Confucian thought
• He laid the groundwork for a bureaucracytrained civil servants to run the government
• Education became key to career advancement in
eh bureaucracy
• Confucianism is not a religion. It is an ethical
system
DAOISTS SEEK HARMONY
• Laozi also lived in the 6th c. BCE
• For Laozi the natural order of things was more
important
• Universal force “Dao” that guides all things
• Book: Dao De Ching (The Way of Virtue)
• Seek order and harmony in nature
LEGALISTS URGE HARSH RULE
• Practical political thinkers (opposite of
Confucius)
• Powerful government was key to restoring order
• Hanfeizi and Li Si were the founders of Legalism
• Stressed punishment more than rewards
• Government should control ideas as well as
actions
I CHING AND YIN AND YANG
• Book or oracles called I Ching to answer ethical
and practical problems
•
Dispensed advice and common sense
• Yin and yang- two powers that represented the
natural rhythms of life
A NEW EMPEROR TAKES CONTROL
•
Short lived dynasty
•
Shi Huangdi “First Emperor” takes title in 221 BCE
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Used legalism
•
Defeated invaders and suppressed internal revolt
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Doubled the size of China
•
Ordered the nobles to live in the capital city and then took
their land and appointed administrators to govern it
•
To silence criticism he had hundreds of Confucian scholars
murdered
•
Burned books
•
Established an autocracy- government had unlimited
power
A PROGRAM OF CENTRALIZATION
• Building a highway network of over 4,000 miles
• Forced labor
• Standardized law, currency, weights and
measures, and Chinese writing
• Trade boomed
• New merchant class
• But harsh taxes and a repressive government
made him unpopular
GREAT WALL OF CHINA
• Shi Huangdi was increasingly unpopular
• Zhou rulers had erected a series of walls earlier
to deal with northern nomadic attacks
• Unified the wall 1,400 miles to the west
• Used hundreds of thousands of peasants to
build it, many of whom died
• So big you can see it from space
THE FALL OF THE QIN
• Peasant rebelled three years after Shi Huangdi’s
son took power
• By 202 BCE they were finished
• The Han dynasty will take over